


Seed and Stem; Wreckage and Hope

by SingleWhiteCatLady



Series: Plotgrenades [1]
Category: Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Blind!Max, Blindness, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Missing Persons, Prostitution, sad fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-05-18 00:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5890321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingleWhiteCatLady/pseuds/SingleWhiteCatLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max is blinded by a raiding party and Furiosa finds him in a no-name settlement at the far reaches of the Citadel’s boarders selling himself in a bordello to stay alive. She takes him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seed and Stem; Wreckage and Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Plotgrenades are prompts I've found myself drawn to and have started to work on. Feel free to use the prompt or summary to write your own fic! I probably won't update these very often, if at all, so feel free to enjoy them or use them to create your own madness! ;D
> 
> Lord, I really do like to torture Max. =3= Someone should probably do something about this.

0-0-0

 

It’s been a little more than three-hundred days since she’s seen him. But she recognizes the jacket, catches the man wearing it by the throat and pins him against one of the rough stone walls of the Citadel’s Trade Yard and points a knife at his belly; “Where did you get that—That’s not yours!”

 

The man has one eye and a thick scar down that side of his face. He whimpers and holds his hands up; “’traded for it!” He says in a whine; “You w-want it? T-t-take it!” He smiles broadly with rotting teeth and quickly works the jacket from his shoulders, “T-take it! J-just don’t cut me!”

 

“Where did you trade for it?”

 

The man points vaguely North, “T-th-three-three days ride. T-town in the c-cliffs.”

 

“How long ago?”

 

“Th-thir-thirty days?”

 

She steps back, breathes deep and feels the eyes on her for the first time. The Lady of the Citadel is not a force to be trifled with. She’s known as the God killer. The Liberator. The Hollow Mother—Water Giver… All these and more, but the people of the Citadel she is simply Furiosa. She breathes deep and bows her head at the man she’s just assaulted, turns to the nearest familiar face in the crowd and says; “Give him an extra day’s ration of water and food… for the jacket,” And she stalks away.

 

Toast is in the council room when she arrives, drops the jacket onto the big table and meets the younger woman’s eyes. “I need a car and five fighters.”

 

Toast looks at the jacket and meets Furiosa’s eyes evenly; “He could be dead, you know that, right? You could go and not find anything but bones.”

 

She knows, it’s a heavy weight in her chest, but she has to. Has to know.

 

Toast nods, “Any Willing, go.”

 

Furiosa takes the jacket.

 

There are holes and tears in it, part of the pauldron is missing. A clean divot cut by the passage of a bullet. There’s a patch of leather sewn in that isn’t the same color as the rest, dyed black by engine grease.

 

It smells like sweat and exhaust and nothing like how her imagination makes her believe Max smelled. She spends the night dusting and cleaning it and repairing the tears and holes with careful stitches.

 

She gets six volunteers. Cheedo is one of them. Her hair shorn short and pulled back into a tiny knob of a tail on the back of her head. She looks unassuming, soft like most young women who have been well fed most of their lives. But her eyes are hard, a black stripe from temple to temple and archaic tattoos on her fingers and wrists.

 

They set out at dawn, heading north toward the far end of the mountains in two cars bristling with firepower.

 

Furiosa sees a raiding party approaching on the second day, but one look at the green hand painted on the sides of the cars and they swerve off into the desert without engaging. They know better. Furiosa and the Sisters are nothing like Joe, their loyalty is won by love and the ferocity of their caring, there are very few who know of them that would betray that.

 

The evening of the third day a party meets them on the edges of the town’s boarders. They’re defensive, but when Furiosa says she’s looking for a missing man they seem sympathetic.

 

“He’s my height, has blue eyes and wears a knee brace… He wore this,” She pulls out the jacket, “—When he left the Citadel three-hundred days go.”

 

The men don’t seem to know anything, say they haven’t seen anyone like that, but she’s welcome to ask the Governor. The man in control of the town. One of the three men breaks away on his motorcycle to escort them.

 

Cheedo and the boys stay close, don’t leave the cars while Furiosa goes into the town to find the Governor’s home and speak with him.

 

The town is carved into the face of the cliff. Edges rounded by time and sand, metal doors bolted to the very rock. She peers up the face of the cliff and sees windmills, turning and powering strings of tiny fragile bulbs strung up and down the cave walls. Sees the white tufts of goats along the cliff face, bouncing back and forth from impossible ledge to impossible ledge. She enters the system and is immediately inundated by smells and sounds and humidity.

 

There is laughter, the scent of alcohol on the breath of people she passes. One room is a large kitchen, producing the smell of meat and frying potatoes. More rooms are trade stalls. This one with linens, clothes, that one with weaponry and shiny metal baubles. Some passages travel farther back, seem to be the private living quarters of the inhabitants. Yet more trade stalls. There are people huddled together in another shallow niche throwing ancient dice and cheering. A young woman walks by chewing on a fresh, juicy potato with a man on her arm. Furiosa wonders if this town has a trade route or grows their own food in a hidden spot of green.

 

The cave opens up, something more natural in shape with niches and rooms carved into its walls. Steel scaffolding providing transportation from one level up to another and around the circumference of the great dome. There is a pool against one wall, the water collected in it about waist deep and flowing out of a natural spring in the wall at a slow trickle. There are tin cups set along the ledge of the pool and as she watches a man stops, scoops up a cupful and drinks. She finds the idea novel and not entirely unlike the spigots the mechanics had installed at the citadel to provide Those Below with water whenever they need it.

 

It makes sense to have a pool in a cave, and a faucet in the desert. There is less waste.

 

The Governor is on the third tier above the pool. He’s a tall thin man with legs that end below his knees, replaced by metal pegs with tough leather ends. He shakes her hand with both of his twisted ones and invites her in, offers a glass of the strong bitter alcohol.

 

They talk first of politics, Furiosa knows how these things go, even if she doesn’t like it. Capable and Toast are usually the ones who handle this kind of thing. As far as she knows this town hasn’t been on any of the records from Joe’s time and she has never sent an ambassador or convoy to see who and how it is run.

 

The Governor is well educated considering this town’s isolation. He knows who Furiosa is, seems at peace with her and the Sister’s rule of the Citadel. Expresses interest in possible trade. He has artisans and performers, novelties, and pretty trinkets. He also has potato alcohol in abundance. It’s a staple of this place, their main trade good. Without it his people likely would have starved or died of malnutrition.

 

The raiders tend to leave the place alone as long as they’re given alcohol and not killed once they were drunk enough to lose consciousness.

 

“But I doubt you would come with two cars, so heavily armed, to talk of trade—at least not alone you wouldn’t.”

 

Furiosa nods and sets the jacket on the table; “A man came into the Citadel with this jacket four days ago. Said he’d bartered for it here a moon cycle or more ago…” She swallows nervously; “The man this belonged to was a friend of mine I haven’t seen in three-hundred days. This is the first sign of his presence I’ve found in that long.”

 

“So you came looking or him?”

 

“I came looking for the person who traded his jacket away.”

 

The Governor is still, thinking, and after a minute nods. “I have records of almost all trade conducted, we’ll have a look,” He opens a large leather bound book on his desk and flips backward a dozen or more pages, then a few more. “Right. Here’s the first trade made after the New Moon thirty days ago…” He turns the book so they can both read it and hovers his finger over the small precise writing. It’s charcoal ink, ashes mixed with alcohol and a bit of oil. She suspects there’s blood in it from the color.

 

It’s all official trade, what the stalls take in and report, what the town takes in as a collective to be dispersed to its inhabitants.

 

_500 units of Guzzoline traded for 100 crates of potatoes and 4 units Alc._

_6 Chickens traded for 2 crates of potatoes and leeks._

 

There’s nothing that catches her eye.

 

The Governor turns back another cycle.

 

They traded a bunch of Alc. To a couple Gastown boys for their expertise running more electric lines into a newly carved cave.

 

Another cycle. And another, almost one-hundred and sixty days now—

 

_1 motorbike (crashed) traded for medical attention and care (three days)_

_(no salvageable guzzoline)_

_1 truck (Crashed and Salvaged) traded for food and lodgings (one week)_

_12 units of guzzoline_

_3 bodies (human) salvaged for fertilizer and pig food._

_Various implements Salvaged for town defense including;_

_6 handguns_

_182 bullets_

_2 shotguns_

_43 shells_

_1 long range scoped rifle_

_30 bullets_

_10 grenades_

_2 long lances with exploding heads_

_11 various knives_

_6 boots_

_3 pairs of trousers_

_1 shirt_

_3 jackets_

_3 goggles_

_2 scarves_

_1 hatchet_

_Assorted Tools_

 

“Was there a raid?” Furiosa motioned to the list.

 

The Governor looks at the list, consults another book, this one holds small paragraph size entries keeping record for hundreds of days—thousands perhaps; “Scavenger was attacked. This is the report filed by the defenses,” He supplies the book.

 

_15-0331—Lone Scav attacked 7 klicks beyond border. 1 esplojun and much gunfire, then silense. Went to check for sirfivers found Scav a lone with bullet woond in leg, 3 Raders Ded. Salveg listed in Envintorry. Witnesed by Dezmunrow and Crew._

 

The Governor taps the number sequence before the patch of untidy script; “This number is the thousand-days since we established ourselves, the next is what day in the thousand-cycle it is.”

 

Furiosa felt a tingle, “Did he survive? The Scav?”

 

“Oh, I should think so… I don't have any record of a death until much later, and they weren't a stranger.”

 

“Would the Medicals have any record of what happened to him?”

 

“They should,” He paged through the ledger and shook his head; “I don’t meddle in their records unless there's a death or a birth, so long as they’re kept I’m happy. Other than the three jackets mentioned here there’s no record of a jacket being bartered in the last three-hundred days… The kitchen has records as well, and most of the larger stalls, perhaps your man passed through and traded for food or lodging," He drummed his fingers on the edge of his table; "Now, I'm not trying to presume anything, but there are personal trades that go on in the lower levels. Their records are different if they’re kept at all, and we do have travelers and scavengers through there quite often. It's a possibility...” He left the thought unfinished.

 

She nodded. She knew next to nothing about Max, but she knew he was a man and didn't all men Park themselves on occasion? “I’ll start there if it's alright.”

 

The Governor nodded, “And I’ll see what records I can get from Medical.”

 

The town was run smoothly enough, so far Furiosa had no reason to be leery of the place other than Max’s jacket had appeared from it. It was also quite possible that the man she’d assaulted at the Citadel had been lying, but she didn’t want to think of that possibility, didn’t want to think of a skeleton out somewhere in the waste missing his jacket.

 

The Lower Levels are exactly what Furiosa had expected when she heard the Governor mention ‘Personal Trades’. It’s at the end of a long hallway from the main chamber that slants downward on a smooth stepped path. It’s quieter down there, cooler. The hallway opens up into another cavern with two tunnels cut into the rock at the far end. The main room is lit well and there is a natural pool in the center about three times as wide as she is tall. There are a few women sitting in it naked and washing, a few others a way’s off scrubbing clothes or their children.

 

The walls of the cavern are painted brightly and as she looks she notices a young woman seated on a square metal box near the opening to the right hand tunnel smearing paint with her bare fingertips onto the wall.

 

Furiosa approaches slowly and notices life down the left hand tunnel. There are a number of small niches carved into the walls with curtains and flimsy tin doors. Men and women and one or two girls and boys with bruises on the edges of their lips or fingerprints pressed into their hips, all milling around looking hungry at her and two or three travelers who are striding around the room looking at the paintings.

 

No one is chained, there is no guard at the entrance, the areas outside the rooms are well lit and smell vaguely sweet like cooking vegetables, there must be another kitchen stall in this cave. A few children run out of the hallway into the main chamber chasing a large white rat with a bow tied around its neck, playful and at ease.

 

Furiosa turns back to the young woman smearing paint along a wall in long sweeping lines, humming as she works to create a sweeping auburn landscape kissed by a white sun.

 

“Is there someone down here in charge?” Furiosa says softly and the girl turns, meets her face with big brown eyes.

 

“The Governor is in charge of the town.”

 

“No, I meant down here.”

 

“Oh, no. We’re in charge of ourselves,” She turns back to her painting.

 

“I’m looking for someone who would have traded this about thirty days ago,” She holds up the jacket, lets the girl get a good look at it.

 

She hums and shakes her head, “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen it before… You can ask around if you want though, just don’t bother the children.”

 

Furiosa nods, notices eyes watching the kids protectively as they dart around chasing their rat. It seems the thing is a pet of some sort, not a potential meal.

 

The faces and eyes she meets are friendly—some of them overtly yearning. But none of them she speaks to know where the jacket came from.

 

“Maybe somebody passing through traded it for food?” A young man says when asked if he recognizes it, tilts his chin down enticingly at Furiosa and rubs the flat of one malformed hand down his thin chest; “I’ll give you something better if you like.”

 

Furiosa shakes her head and leaves, heads back through the hollow echoing immensity of the painted cavern, up the stairs and back into the main cave. She stalks toward the kitchen stall she’d seen, intent on asking to see their trade records. The Governor meets her halfway there, taps along beside her as she walks.

 

“Well, Medical had a little more information. The man they treated had been shot, just as the ledger says, bullet lodged next to the bone in his left thigh. They had record that he had tattoos on his back and the old Immortan’s brand on his neck—“

 

Furiosa stopped dead and turned on him wide eyed; “He did?”

 

“Yes… His wound became badly infected.”

 

Her throat clenched and her metal fingers tightened on the leather of Max’s jacket.

 

“He had fits because of the fever—“

 

“His body,” Her voice cracked; “What did you do with his body?”

 

The Governor blinked; “He recovered… mostly,” His fingers tapped nervously on one another.

 

“Did he leave? Where did—“

 

The Governer shook his head, “The fever... He’s still here, nowhere else for him to go. You see,” He swallowed uncomfortably, "His mind was addled."

 

In that instant Furiosa imagined him lying somewhere in a ward, lifeless because the fever had burned too hot and injured his mind. “How… how bad is it?”

 

The Governor nodded and motioned for her to follow, taptaptapped his way down the path back toward the Lower Levels and with every step something slimy and writhing in Furiosa’s middle grew more and more violent.

_No. Nononono._

 

“Savanah,” The Governor addressed the painting girl directly; “Where’s Shadow?”

 

The girl’s expression changed. Became pinched and uncomfortable, flicked to Furiosa and the jacket and back to the Governor. She swallowed and her mouth flapped before she found her voice again. “All the way down, on the left… Where it’s dark.”

 

The Governor thanked her, passed over something small and squishy and wrapped in cloth. The girl took it and hummed in thanks. It was some sort of white treat because she popped it directly into her mouth and sighed in delight, then turned unsteady hands back to her painting.

 

_Please, no. Nonononono_

 

Taptaptaptap went the Governor’s legs and Furiosa’s heart sank down deeper and deeper with each step.

 

There are no other people this far down the passageway, no children playing, and the lights have been disconnected from the farthest alcove, they dangle dusty and unused and a thick curtain hangs over the entrance, long tails of string on which bullet casings have been strung, left to dangle from ceiling to floor, a net of them. The Governor nods his head toward the curtain and Furiosa moves forward, as if drawn like a magnet, unable to resist. The noise of the casings clacking together is almost deafening against the thump of Furiosa’s heart in her ears. Inside it's dark as engine grease.

 

“What do you want?”

 

Oh, Mother’s it’s his voice. Cracked and dry and disused and the whole place smells of stale passion, sweat, and potent potato alcohol.

 

“If you don’t speak I can’t help you.”

 

She can’t speak—Oh, why can’t she speak!

 

Something rattles in the dark of the little niche and Furiosa can feel the tension building. The next second a tin cup comes flying out of the darkness and barely misses her head, clangs harshly off the wall and splatters a few drops of alcohol. It is followed by an assortment of other things. A boot—a wrench, a chunk of stone, a handful of small pebbles mixed with sand—a small long bone likely from a goat or a pig that's been sharpened and broken at some point.

 

Curses. Low and vile and half growls half snarls. After a second everything is still and she can hear him breathing, harsh and heavy and as close to sobs as she’s ever heard him. He breathes in deeply and lets it out.

 

“Alright then,” Another scrape and the soft pat of bare feet against the rough woven mat. "Come on. I'm ready." 

 

After a moment something swipes through the air at about waist height, clangs hard against one wall—another—then swings the other way. He stands still, she can see the outline of him now brandishing a long piece of bent pipe in one hand, the tilt of his head and pale slash of his teeth. “I can hear you _breathing!”_ He snarls. "If you don't want me, and you don't want to fight what do you want?"

 

“Max?”

 

He drops the pipe, stumbles backward with a groan and claps both hands over his ears. He falls, trips and goes down hard, backs himself up against the low edge of his pallet and pulls his knees to his chest. “No—“ He says weakly, “No, stay back!”

 

The Governor catches her flesh arm, wraps his long fingers around her elbow and his eyes are on Max. He’s protecting Max—He’s willing to put a relationship with the Citadel to the wayside to protect the man in the dark room because of one word. She doesn’t fight, doesn’t struggle. Doesn’t give the Governor any reason to do anything more.

 

“Max, it’s me… It’s Furiosa.”

 

He whines, low and long and rocks a little, shakes his head; “No—You—you’re safe. You’re safe. Y-you’re not real. You’re not real!”

 

“Max, I’m real. I can prove it if you let me—“

 

“No—No, go _away!”_

 

The Governor pulls on her arm and she lets him drag her away from the door, goes without resisting because she gets it—she knows the man is protecting him from what he sees as a threat. He doesn’t know about the way Max trembles and his eyes slide to the side—flinching—talking to people who no one else can see.

 

“Do I have to ask you to leave?” He says.

 

“No… But I need to talk to him—“

 

“He doesn’t want to talk to you—“

 

Furiosa hesitates, nods and when they’re back to where Savanah is, where the girl has turned to watch them with wide fearful eyes Furiosa breathes deeply and holds out the jacket to the Governor. “Give this back to him. That’s all I ask. “

 

The man hesitates but takes the jacket, looks at her with curious eyes and a hard set to his jaw. “Did he run away from you?”

 

“The day Joe died he saved my life… He left a free man and didn’t come back.”

 

“Why is he afraid of you? What did you do to him?”

 

“Nothing… Just—just give that to him and tell him that I’m real. If he doesn’t want it back I’ll take it and go peacefully… I’ll send someone to discuss trade agreements, but you won’t see me again.”

 

The Governor stands perfectly still balanced on his slender metal legs. He holds the jacket out to Savanah, “If he reacts unfavorably bring it back.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Savanah drapes the jacket carefully over her paint flecked arms and sprints back toward the darkened end of the tunnel. Furiosa sees her disappear around a bend in the passageway and all is quiet.

 

The children with the rat come back into the main cavern sharing pieces of a cooked potato and a chunk of goat cheese with their pet, they gather in a well-lit corner of the atrium and eat, blink owlishly and wave at the Governor and Furiosa and whisper. From somewhere down the hallway to the right there is the soft moan of a man reaching completion followed by the sharp cry of a woman amid her own and half a moment later Savanah comes back empty handed, panting for breath.

 

“He—he says he wants her.”

 

“How did he react?”

 

Savanah shook her head; “I dunno, he was quiet.”

 

“Did he sound—“

 

“Furi?” It’s not a shout, but it echoes down the length of the hall and when she lifts her head he’s standing there, left shoulder on the flat wall, limping, his jacket clutched in his fist, right hand is out, lifted— fingers splayed and searching.

 

There isn’t much light, just the strings hanging on the walls, but she sees his face. He’s thinner, but well kept, his hair cut if a little unevenly, his cheeks covered in short hairs. It’s his eyes that stop the breath in her chest. Wide and flicking left and right unfocused—

 

Oh, Mothers—

 

His right hand swings slowly back and forth in front of him and she knows. Oh, she knows and it feels like a knife in her chest. She takes a shuddering breath and moves, makes herself slow because just running at him could be a death sentence.

 

His eyes move, head tilting, finding the sound of her and his face turns in her direction, chin down eyes flicking up and down, side to side—dull and sightless. He speaks in a whisper, low and threatening even as he shudders; “Furi.”

 

“Max.”

 

His shoulders sag and he nearly collapses, his hand straining in her direction even as his feet don’t move.

 

She steps closer slowly, make sure her boots make deliberate sounds on the ground and brushes her fingers against his own.

 

They spasm, clench and follow up the length of her arm as she grows nearer, finds her shoulder and neck and the brand on her nape as hers draw his head forward, press their brows together. His hand wanders, finds the straps of her new mechanical arm the cylinders of her fingers. And the mesh that makes up the angle of her thumb. His hand moves ceaselessly, scuffs over her hair and down one cheek, grazes one of her breasts in search of her arm and jerks back only to come forward again and find her chin, her lips, her nose, brows, and the fan of her lashes.

 

“It’s OK, it’s OK,” She whispers, feels the uneven jerks of his breath against her face, the cool wet drips from his eyes onto her arm and chest. His leg tries to give out and she has to wrap both arms around him to keep him upright, holds the pressure until he finds his feet. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

 

“I—“ He hiccupped; “I was—was coming back… tried but they caught me—I—“

 

“Shhh,” She stroked the back of his head. “It’s okay.”

 

“I-I can’t see.”

 

She moved without thought, pressed her lips to the side of his face, tasted salt and could feel the loneliness and fear in each shake. “Everything’s OK.”

 

He shook his head, in denial of it, but clung to her all the harder. “I don’t know where I am… I—“ His hand went out and found the wall, the other swiping through space at his side, head still pressed to her brow.

 

“We’re in the hallway. Where do you need to go?”

 

“Back…”

 

“Back to your room?”

 

He shuddered, shook his head. “No… No, never there. S-smells like them all the time—I-I can feel them on me.”

 

“Shhh!” She pulled him closer, gripped tighter and hissed into his ear; “What happened? Did someone force you—“

 

“I—“ Another hiccup, then another, “—r-ran out of things to trade… N-needed food and w-water.”

 

“Okay… What about your boots? If you stay here I can get them.”

 

After a moment he shook his head, gripped tighter to her. It wasn’t worth it. It—it just wasn’t worth it.

 

“Okay—we-we’re going,” She caught his hand and squeezed, felt his fingers chilled and thin against her own. “Just follow me, I won’t let go.”

 

His toes curled into the soles of his feet and he ducked his head, seeming to find her shadow and bow into it, his head against the back of her shoulder. The back of his hand fitted into her palm. It felt wrong—so wrong.

 

The Governor said nothing, just nodded at her evenly and let them pass.

 

A few people in the main cavern stopped and stared, some whispered, but she didn’t stop, not until they were almost to the mouth of the cave system, the air outside so bright with the sun, and she heard Max’s stomach make a hollow roaring noise even above the clamor of the stalls. She stopped long enough to trade six apples for a double portion of meat and potatoes and the woman from the stall carried it out wrapped in ancient news print, took the apples with wide dreamy eyes and darted back inside to her husband.

 

Cheedo’s eyes were wide, disbelieving when Furiosa appeared and pulled open the passenger door to her car, cupped her metal hand to the back of Max’s head and helped ease him inside. His fingers were inhumanly tight on her own but she managed, swung his jacket around his shoulders and presented the package of food let him settle it on his lap and shove it toward his mouth with his fingers.

 

“Slow down,” Furiosa pressed her metal hand over his own, not a force, just a reminder. “Nobody’s going to take it from you.”

 

She sat there in the sand beside him gripping his hand until he’d eaten all of it, took the paper so he wouldn’t lick it clean and offered a small pear from their reserve.

 

“Cheedo?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“You drive.”

 

The girl’s face pinched in determination and she nodded once, circled and slid behind the wheel.

 

Furiosa slid in beside him, their legs tangled, and pulled his head against her shoulder. He ate the pear slowly, licked the juice from his hand as it dripped onto his wrist, while she hummed nonsense tunes into his hair. He finished the pear sometime later, nothing left but the seeds and stem, fell into a dreamless stupor against her with them closed tightly in his fist.

 

0-0-0

 

0-0-0

 

0-0-0


	2. Damaged Goods

0-0-0

0-0-0

0-0-0

He doesn’t sleep for long, barely two hours before he jerks awake with a snarl and a swing of the fist he has trapped between Furiosa and the seat. He’s drawing back his other hand to strike and Cheedo acts on instinct, grabs his arm at the elbow and pins it beneath her own, his wrist drawn back hard against the joint, tiny pear seeds spilling out into the seat between her legs. 

He shouts—SCREAMS. 

And Furiosa already has her flesh hand on his chest, yelling to be heard above the desperate peel of his voice. 

“MAX! IT’S OKAY! IT’S ME! IT’S US! YOU’RE SAFE!” She throws her leg over his, shoves him back against the seat and pins him there with the weight of her body. 

“Stop! STOP! We’re not going to hurt you!” Cheedo struggles to keep his left arm pinned and keep her eyes on the car ahead of them. Pez and Dixon are turned and waving at her, trying to get a signal that everything is OK. Their lancer is pounding his fist on the roof of the car and shouting.

Max has his eyes squeezed shut, is banging his head back against the seat—if it weren’t padded Furiosa would be worried, but as it is she waits, he’s not fighting to get his arms free any longer, and his legs have stopped kicking. Now there’s just the flare of his nostrils, the slam of his skull against the seat, and the frantic wheeze of his breath. 

“Max—“ She slides her right hand up and into his hair, cups the back of his head and he goes still. She presses their brows together; “Max, it’s OK. You’re with me. It’s—It’s Furiosa, remember? I’m real, you’re safe.”

His body goes limp but his eyes remain tightly shut, lips compressed into near nonexistence. He breathes harshly in and out through flared nostrils, as if he couldn’t get enough air. 

“That’s it,” She scratched the blunt ends of her nails against his scalp gently; “Just breathe.”

Cheedo doesn’t release him, but her grip shifts, fingers lacing through his, pinning a few remaining seeds against his palm. “You’re alright,” She said with a shuddering breath. “Furiosa found you. It’s alright.” 

His lips part on an explosive sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob and his eyes open, stare sightlessly upward and drip moisture back into the hair behind his ears. 

Furiosa brushes it away with her knuckles, combs her fingers back over his brow. “What do you need? How can we help?”

Cheedo’s face flexes into discomfort and she glances down at his hand; “Ow—OW!” She tries to retract her fingers but he won’t let go; “Max, leggo!”

Furiosa’s teeth grit; “It’s Cheedo, you remember Cheedo, right?”

His fingers spring apart and Furiosa sees little divots in his palms where the pear seeds have left their mark. His hand moves and catches Furiosa under the chin—It’s not violent, though she flinches as if expecting it to be. It’s just where his hand goes, a little rougher than either one of them would have liked. His fingers flex—smell of fruit—and pass over her face, skim across her cheeks, nose and brow. Touch the short bristles of her hair and go to her wrist, pull it against the side of his head as if even that infinitesimal contact helped ground him. 

It’s only then that she gets a good look at his face, more specifically, his eyes. 

At first she can’t discern anything wrong with them at all. But then they shift a little to the right, the sunlight slants across them just right and she can make out a slight film behind his pupil. Invisible unless you’re looking for it and have enough light. It tightens her gut and the fingers in his hair and she forces herself to breathe in carefully; “Max, I’m going to move now. Are you OK?”

His tongue traces the line of his lips but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t nod, doesn’t even appear to have heard her. 

She moves anyway, shifts her weight into the empty space between the seats and keeps her false hand on his chest as she rummages through the stash of supplies in the back. When she shifts forward again he has his head turned toward the window and the sunset, eyes shut, brows pulled down. His hand lifts and hovers above his face, cupped over his eyes. 

“Max?” 

He tilts his face into it a little more, keeps his hand firmly in place. “’s warm… but—have to stay out of the light… Until it heals.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat, “Okay… Do—do you want a scarf to tie over them?”

He hesitated, nodded. 

She pulled her own from around her neck, rolled it and let him hold it in place while she tied it gently at the back of his head. “We’ll take it off when it gets dark.”

He grunted in the affirmative and settled back into the seat, body tilted toward the sunlight. 

Furiosa stared at him for a moment, afraid. What had just happened? Why had he struggled so? Why was she surprised that he’d struggled. There was no telling what had been done to him down in the lower levels of that place. Had he ever tried to escape? Or had he resigned himself to it?

He couldn’t see… What would happen if he tried to leave now, how would he survive?

Would he even be able to leave if he wanted to? Or would he be as much a prisoner at the Citadel as the circumstances had made him in the town beneath the cliffs?

“Max… you should drink something,” She pressed a canteen into his hands and watched him drink greedily. Brushed a lost stream of liquid away with the backs of her knuckles and tried to chase the darkening thoughts away with the solidity of his presence. He kept the canteen close, kept two fingers pressed over the opening when he didn’t have his lips on it, hunched his shoulders defensively until it was empty.

He didn’t sleep again, the pressure on Furiosa’s palm never relented. 

They stopped to refuel about an hour or more after sundown, passed out rations and water. Furiosa took over driving and Cheedo settled in the back of the car with her head propped on a folded blanket, her rifle within arm’s reach. 

“I don’t like the look of this sky,” Cheedo said, staring out the rear side glass, “There’s no stars to the east.” 

“Probably a dust storm coming,” Furiosa was leaned forward, peering out the wind screen. 

Max’s hand flexed in hers. 

“Should we stop?”

Furiosa hesitated, eyed Max huddled in the seat beside her. If they stopped they had a greater chance of being buried in sand. If they didn’t, they had a greater chance of being separated or running into a core in the storm and being overturned. Likely killed. This car was not a Rig, it was so much lighter, boxy, so much more fragile. They would waste fuel fighting the storm. They would be unable to move if they got bogged down in sand and happened to be in the path of a core. 

It put a hard, unsettled feeling in her stomach. 

“Furiosa, what do we do?”

She let out a noise. A sigh, and the car decelerated, came to a stop. Max heard the gears clicking as she put it in park. “We’ll wait it out.”

Cheedo was already moving, popping open the hatch; “I’ll break everyone up… four in each car.”

Furiosa’s voice caught. “No… He’s not—I don’t think putting people in the car with him is a good idea, considering how he acted earlier.”

“Oh.”

“Boss? Everything OK?” A man’s voice. Max’s pulse quickened.

“Knuckling down,” Cheedo said evenly. 

“Cheedo, he’s used to you, you can stay—“

“No he’s not,” Cheedo let out an explosive breath; “I’ll be OK. Lefty’s reliable.”

“Tip-Top and I’ll keep an eye on her, Boss. ‘sides, there’s plenty of room in the Locust.”

Furiosa nodded. He couldn’t hear it, but he knew. Knew because Cheedo moved and the hatch snapped closed again.

Max didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He heard people moving outside the car, felt the sudden jolt of another car tapping their bumper and dug his nails into Furiosa’s wrist. 

“It’s OK,” Her voice sounded calm, even. “We’re settling in… I’m going to check our fuel and supplies. You’ll be safe here,” She reached over and slipped a finger under the edge of the scarf tied around his head. “You can take this off now, it’s dark.”

He didn’t move so she tugged it down for him, let it dangle around his neck and brushed her palm over his head in a manner that was supposed to be comforting. She pressed another piece of fruit into his hand, “It’s a plum,” And opened her door. 

He heard her leave. Felt as if the world dropped away everywhere he wasn’t touching. Like he was dangling over an abyss on a razor thin ledge about to give way. 

There were things out there, hovering, waiting to touch-grab—BRUISE or worse. His stomach bubbled, but he ate the plum anyway, sucked the bits of sweet flesh from the stone and stuck that into his pocket. 

There were voices. Close. 

Were they coming for him?

Where was Furiosa’s voice? 

What if she’d left? What if she’d realized how useless he was with a leg that would have been less painful cut off and eyes that didn’t work? Mind that screamed and skipped and played tricks on him? 

You’re useless. 

Waste of meat—Waste of space—WASTE. You’re a shadow, not a person. What use are you but to—

He ground his teeth until his jaws popped, breathed in past the hard pump of his heart and out again to effect calm.

Over the past one-hundred days he’d learned a dark truth. Without his eyes, he could only do one thing well, and sooner or later Furiosa would figure it out—would she be disgusted? Or would she find some kind of value in it like They had?

Had she left him here with these men on purpose? 

A car engine started and Max lurched upright, heart beating so hard in his chest he could hear it. It made his eyeballs throb—He raked his hands over the door and found the latch—jerked on it hard and threw it open. There was wind growing in the distance. He could hear it. Low rumbles of thunder.

“No, NO!” He lunged out of the car, hands waving felt sand and pebbles under his feet. Stumbled with his arms swinging in front of him. “Don’t—PLEASE!”

“MAX!” Cheedo’s voice from somewhere behind him; “SOMEONE!”

Boots. Heavy boots. The thud of them over a car’s bonnet, the crunch of them on the sand, someone was running at him. 

He didn’t know where he was. Remembered a bright blur and a sudden dark motion over a dune—the sound of gunfire. He remembered blood was red, and that there had been lots of it. His head was bleeding and he was out of bullets. His leg—his leg was on FIRE! 

They’d chased him—they were CHASING HIM! Man Eaters. Dog Killers. RENDERS! RAPERS! THIEVES!

He cried out, fear, anger, and futility, head ducked forward and searching in the darkness with both hands as the wind picked up, throwing sand and grit at him like miniature bullets. The world fell away to nothing each time he lifted his feet. Each step was an unknown. As if he were stepping off a cliff into dead air. 

You’re going to die! You’ll run yourself right off a cliff!

Why not just end it? 

“Max! Max, it’s me! Stop!” The voice was so far away.

The boots caught up with him, but instead of catching him they circled to his front, moved when he moved, spoke low and clear; “Max, it’s OK. It’s me. It’s me, I’m real and you’re safe!”

He shifted to the left, the boots shifted with him—to the right—they followed. 

He was trapped. Turned and stumbled to the left, trying to retrace his steps. The wind cut at him, sand getting into his ears and nostrils and mouth. 

“Max, please! Just stop—just stop for a minute and breathe.” 

His left leg buckled and he went to his hands and knees, scrambled weakly a few more paces and stopped, felt wetness running down his face but didn’t dare wipe it away. Didn’t dare move save to sit hard on the sand and tangle his fingers in his shirt front, rocking into the emptiness around him. Voice pitched low and loud trying to find an echo, walls, barriers, anything. But the wind tore the sound from him and ate it. 

“Easy—“ She made a soft sound in the front of her mouth, thunder crashed above them, he could feel it in his chest; “It’s OK. I—I’m going to touch your arm—help you up. We have to get back to the car or this storm will bury us!”

He didn’t nod, didn’t do anything to stop her—what could he do? She pulled him up, her flesh arm wrapped around his back under his shoulders, her metal hand on the back of his head, keeping his face tilted into her neck to protect it from the blowing sand. 

They stumbled forward for what seemed like an eternity then her hands shifted and he heard a car door opening, felt her shoving him inward and lifted his hands to protect his head, ducked in and scrambled over the shifts, crushed himself up against the opposite door. Heard her climb in. The harsh gasping of her breath. 

“Max?” She had to speak loudly to be heard over the storm. 

He said nothing. 

“What were you doing?”

He felt hot and cold all at once, shivery and rubbed raw from the blowing sand. 

“Max,” She said his name like a command and he flinched, coughed because words wouldn’t come out, but she wanted him to speak. She’d pulled him out of the caves, out of the ground, and brought him back to the sun and warmth. He owed her… He OWED her a debt. 

What had she paid the Governor for him?

She muttered something and tugged at the scarf around his neck, pulled it up until it covered his whole face, practically flung herself into the back of the car and reached forward to catch him by the shirt. Tugged; “Come here.” 

His heart lurched, clapped in time with the thunder. He felt around the edges of the seat, the roof, the dimensions of the world around him, finding space for himself to move and crawled back to her. 

There was a mat back there, padded, a crate of supplies and jugs of water as well as blankets. He could feel them shifting under his fingers. 

Water gurgled and suddenly something wet was thrust into his hands. “Get that sand off your face. Don’t need grit in your eyes.”

He wiped outward from the inner corner of each eye, then from his nose and mouth and forehead. Wrung a finger in each ear and let the cloth be snatched away with only a minimal flinch.

“Come here,” She said, like an order. 

His body shook and for a moment he felt the urge to defy her. To shake his head and cover the vulnerable parts of his body, but—but it couldn’t be all bad. She wasn’t a man—it wouldn’t hurt—

He moved forward, forced himself to calm and felt the pallet in front of his hands as he moved forward. Wound up sat at her hip, face tilted downward. He peeled the scarf away from his neck and worked his tongue at the backs of his teeth… His mouth was dry—so dry. His hands trembled.

Her living palm lifted and fitted to the side of his face, fingers scratching against his scalp. 

Inhale.

Exhale. 

He let his shoulders sag, made his muscles soft. Nobody liked it when you were all hard and immovable with fear. 

His hand fitted against hers, fingers curled gently around her arm, face tilting to graze her inner wrist with his lips. 

“Max—“

She shivered—arm gave a gentle jerk but he persisted.

“—What are—”

His other hand found her thigh

Her leg jerked, “Max—”

Her skin tasted salty—dusty—

“Max!” She pulled hard on her arm and he followed. “NO!” It came out low and firm and her hand jabbed forward, heel of her palm colliding with his face, a quick hit with an open palm and curled fingers. His lower lip tore against his teeth, flooding his mouth with the taste of dirt and blood. 

He lurched back with both hands over his mouth, shocked. Collided with a crate and fell sideways, slid into a tight uncomfortable space between the back of the driver’s seat and the supplies. Whimpering, body curved away from her. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!” She demanded, low and dangerous and he could smell the knife in her hand. Gun oil and the tang of steel. He could SMELL the death on it.

He said nothing at first, felt himself shivering and sick and unsure what was going on. 

“What were you doing, Max!” 

He felt sick. Trembled and the words came out with their edges stained the red of his teeth; “That’s why you—I don’t know—I—I can’t—Isn’t…” His voice died in his throat. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t—don’t have anything else to give you.”

“So you were going to force me?”

“No,” There was considerably more wetness on his face now. “Y-you called me back into—“ he nodded his head downward. The storm screamed. Max shook. “You called me. I— You want to fight? I don’t—“ His voice cracked; “I don’t know what you want.”

She muttered ‘fuck’ a few times and he heard her shifting her body. Her boots on the pallet between them. Her arm clicked and whirred. 

The storm roared around them, the wind and blowing sand rocking them hard—butting their bumpers against the car behind them. 

“Max… I—I won’t ask you to do that. You don’t have to—have to pay for anything I give you, ever. Understand? You—you’re not a thing to be bought or sold or traded.”

He shook harder, felt nauseated and dizzy. “It’s all I can do.”

Furiosa said fuck one more time and moved forward, pushed his hands away from his face and tilted his chin up with her metal hand. 

He didn’t move. Let her do what she pleased. Let her dab at his mouth with a cloth and press a little harder in her anger to stem the blood flow. 

And then something different happened. Something he almost fought against. 

She bowed her head against his shoulder and pulled him to her chest, her flesh hand petting the back of his head.

He didn’t grip back, “I’m sorry… I didn’t—“

“Shut up… Just—“ She pulled again, pried him out of the space behind the seat and pressed him down until he was coiled tightly to her side on the pallet, “Just go to sleep.”

He couldn’t sleep. Laid there against her side, body stiff and half panicked until the storm died and Furiosa untangled herself from him and climbed out. Checking the others and helping dig out the cars. 

Cheedo came back. She spoke as she climbed into the car; “Max?” 

He ignored her, pretended to sleep, hid the wetness leaking across his face and the blood on his mouth with his arms. Tried to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible. 

“Is he OK?”

Furiosa climbed behind the wheel without saying anything and started the engine.

0-0-0

0-0-0

0-0-0


End file.
